ELA8, CSS, Sferrazza

Another example of a writer who uses descriptive language to connect to a personal place is Henry David Thoreau.  

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American writer.  His ideas have endured for so long, some believe, because they were connected to place. This author is best known for his collection of essays he wrote while living near Walden Pond, Massachusetts titled "Walden".  He wrote about his personal observations of nature and humanity's connections to nature.  Thoreau was one of the first environmentalists.  He believed in conserving our natural resources on private land and preserving wilderness as public land.  He sought to integrate nature and culture and believed in a balance between civilization and nature.  "He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay". Source

He said, "I have traveled a good deal in Concord [Massachusetts]." Thoreau wrote about his home community, and, indeed, both his naturalism and his humanity derived from the specific place and time he lived in. Thoreau teaches us that one does not have to travel far to find curious, fascinating, and inspiring things. As a matter of fact, except for only a handful trips that Thoreau made outside Concord, he spent most of his life in one area. And he knew that area better than anyone else - he took almost daily walks, in any kind of weather, up to four hours a day. Thoreau says about Walden, "The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore."

The ultimate lesson of Thoreau, thus, is that special places are the ones we know well, the ones we "frequent" and grow to love. And thus, the ethic of stewardship should begin with treasuring and preserving one's home-place.

Thoreau's process of finding his 'Walden' teaches us that anyone can do the same. But what does it really mean to have a 'Walden'? A 'Walden' is a place that has special meaning to a community. It doesn't have to be pristine, nor does it necessarily have to be a fully natural area. A 'Walden' can be an empty lot, a schoolyard, a building, a park, conservation lands, farmlands, etc. A 'Walden' is a place of significance to the community, and thus it is up to each person or community to identify what is their 'Walden'.  (from https://www.cincymuseum.org/sites/default/files/walden_edu_guide.pdf)

Part A:  Read Thoreau: I Went to the Woods from "Walden" Chapter 2 "Where I Lived and What I Lived For"

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

Part B:  Read Thoreau: Walden is a Perfect Forest Mirror from Chapter 9 "The Ponds"

In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; —a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun’s hazy brush,—this the light-dust cloth,—which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.

A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We shall, perhaps,look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it….

….It struck me again tonight, as if I had not seen it almost daily for more than twenty years — Why, here is Walden, the same woodland lake that I discovered so many years ago; where a forest was cut down last winter another is springing up by its shore as lustily as ever; the same thought is welling up to its surface that was then; it is the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its Maker, ay, and it may be to me.

Answer the questions on Henry David Thoreau's essays in your Learning Guide 4.5.